


The Most Inconvenient Kind

by Ler



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Imprinting, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a curse," her nana used to say, hands thin and wrinkly, because grandpa died in Goblin Wars and there was no one like him.<br/>"It's a miracle," her mother often smiled, even as she wasted away, slowly, and no amount of love could save her.<br/>"It's a fairytale," laughed the man she wanted to marry, but didn't (Thank Spirits for that!).<br/>"It's a Choice," would say her Mate, sharp teeth and long claws and most kind eyes.<br/>In truth (and after much confusion and panic and careful consideration), she thought, it was a bloody nuisance.<br/>Of the most Inconvenient Kind.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All things unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> (also known as Recognition!AU, where Marianne meets a Goblin King and Mother Nature tells them to have kids or else.)

Marianne’s feet touch the damp thick carpet of moss. The Dark Forest raises above her, the pylons of tree trunks ending somewhere deep into the sky of green and somber, occasional ray of light piercing through to fall on the tender pink of the primroses in full bloom. Cautious, her body still, she lets it greet her, with its guarded tranquil silence, oh, but she has to be patient, has to let it take her in, and tell her all its secrets.

 

Marianne draws a deep breath, kneels down and listens.

 

The Forest speaks, slowly, in murmurs, and rustling, and an occasional far off cry of a bird, and the longer she listens, the louder it grows.

There, behind the fallen tree, starts a mushroom trail, jumbled whispers rolling like a wave away from her into the heart of the forest.

Here, to her left, a squirrel jumps from one tree branch to the next, and the leaves, disturbed, gently waltz through the air on the their way down.

The stray gust of wind blows, touching the edges of her wings, and the primroses dance, swaying to its rhythm.

 

The smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She’s right, she has to be, and father has to listen to her now. There is a reason to this madness, and this will prove to all of them that she is capable, tactic, stealthy, not to mention way more suited for covert missions. Just has to wait a bit longer and-

 

“Marianne!”

 

No. Nonono. NO.

 

Her head snaps back, eyes wide, as the light hits a flash of orange and black and the all too familiar wing pattern that she learned to loath in the past seasons.

 

She looks back, forest growing still again, pulling back the cradling tendrils of acceptance she spend so much time coaxing.

And letting the whole place know that she is here.

 

“Marianne, what are you doing here, sweetheart?” The idiot lands by her side, all gleaming armor, and a stay lock of hair falling all suave-like over his face. Dear ancestors, how blind she was, but now she sees.

 

Without looking she grabs the first thing she can grab – which turns out to be his hand – and pulls him down, rough, into the moss carpet.

 

“What,” the word rushes out of her mouth like a swarm of angry bees, ”do _you_ think you are doing here?”

“Darling, it’s not safe to be here, and your father would be positively heartbroken if something was to happen to you.” His smile is the most disgustingly fake she has ever seen it. 

“It’s my finding, you can’t take it away from me!” She pushes him away, eyes searching for movement that could be there, at the bottom of the trees, should be there, but isn’t. She can’t hold back a sigh of relief.

“What finding? There is nothing here!” Roland sits back and waves his arms.

 

She can’t help but gloat for a moment.

“There is _no one_ here. They are not cutting down the primroses.”

 

He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it without a sound. His head turns, right, left, up to the roof of foliage, and back at her.

“ _They are not_. But why?”

“It’s the midday sun,” she murmurs. “I think it hurts them.”

Roland grins at her, and Marianne quickly covers her mouth.

“That’s a really great finding, _darling_.”

She pushes, quickly, up off the ground, wings flapping, to land by his side.

“You can’t! I spend the past week here, watching them!”

Not to mention what trouble she went through getting this military uniform, dark brown and satin finished cuirass and helm of the scouting division. Yes, her sword sort of stands out, but she can’t go without a weapon.

“And what a good job you did!” Roland stands up, brushing down his uniform. ”I’m sure your father would appreciate _my_ effort. After all,” he steps close, fingers catching her chin. “War is not a place for _women_.”

 

She will blame it on the stupor, the _gall of him_ touching her, talking to her like this after all was said and done, and he keeps systematically ruining her life. So when she looks down, eyes focusing on the strange sensation around her ankle, she thinks it to be a branch.

 

A really strange branch, with almost black knobby fingers.

 

“Goblins!” her leg twitches in an upward kick, restraint slipping as she takes off.

Her wings flap, quickly gaining height.

Behind her, Roland screams, his voice overpowered by snarling, but she doesn’t look back.

 

_You know what they do to captured fairies._

 

There, there it is, the frontier arch, in the gap of which bloom the fields of the Fairy Kingdom, drowned in sunlight.

 

She’s almost there.

 

 

“The net!” someone shouts.

 

The… net?

 

Something crashes over her. Something made of vines and stones and she tangles in it, wings bending at unnatural angles. She falls.

 

Her wings and the moss dampen her fall. She can feel the crunch and pain, a fiery arrow shooting down her back,

 

_it’s broken, i broke my wing_

 

as momentum rolls her down the hill before bringing her to a halt against some stone.

 

The pain overpowers, blurs her vision, and paralyzes her whole being. She feels hands untangling her, Roland’s distressed yells, some force lifting her onto the back of some glimmering, buzzing creature, and her leg, dangling in the air as her body takes off somewhere further, where the sun shines less and less, and the air gets damper, away from the border and into the Dark Forest.

 

_Where no fairy ever came back from._

 

 

“The ferries were capped to meet!”

 

_What_ , scrambles Marianne’s brain as her body is dumped down on some rough flat surface.

 

“Oh,” adds the voice after something else – metallic, probably Roland – lands by her side. “The Fairies Were Captured. Duh. That makes so much more sense.”

 

“QUIET.”

 

Marianne stills. The pain makes it almost impossible to think, but this new voice, rough and commanding, shakes her to the core. She tries to raise her head, disregarding thick claws holding her, to look at the source of the order, but it’s too dark to see, if not for the throne of bone and holes and a figure, tall and lanky, and curved like a mantis, raising off it, four translucent winds fluttering behind him.

 

“What do we have here?” he questions, and walks towards them, thin legs and wide feet and a stick, clank of metal against the floor.

 

Roland stirs by her side. “Let us go,” he demands in a meekest of tones, no, it’s not going to work, they are so in so much trouble.

 

“You trespass,” states the figure, approaching. “You come to my kingdom, to steal and to plot, and you ask for me to Let. You. _Go_.”

 

The creature’s armor _moves_. It flexes and rolls, and _breathes_. The shoulders crack and open on at least three levels. And its fingers, they _crawl_ , claws long and sharp, as they grab onto Roland’s hair and pull.

 

“Don’t think so.”

 

He finally steps into a pool of light, and Marianne sucks in her breath, silently, as her eyes take in a long face with a sneer on his cracked lips, and sharp teeth, and long pointy nose and eyes

 

_blue like the sky on the break of summer_.

 

The person, it’s definitely a person, lets go of Rolland, and straightens. He is _tall_ , and his wings gleam with the colors of _rainbow_.

 

In her defense, Marianne is in a lot of pain.

 

“I’m the Bog King,” he says. “And you are _food_.”

 

_You know what they do to captured fairies._

 

“But first, you are going to tell me what are you doing here. After all, your King was so kind to send you,” the Bog King turns to her, and she quickly bows down her head. ”Judging by your armor, you are what, a commanding officer?”

 

“I won’t tell you a thing,” Roland bluffs horribly as Marianne watches the end of the metallic staff land dangerously close to her face.

 

“Oh, but you will,” a nail taps against her helm. “We’ll crack your pretty shell and look at all the ugly things inside and you will tell me every single think you know, down to you favorite color.”

 

A sudden prodding touch causes her wings to flap furiously, pain ripping through her back, and Marianne can’t help but groan. “This one is damaged. You can have it,” says the goblin king, and it takes Marianne half a second to realize that _she_ is the damaged one, and that “have it” means-

 

“DON’T!”

 

Roland’s voice is a mix of fear and concern but she doesn’t feel any warmth from it, as the number of hands on her seem to increase, tugging at her, pulling on her armor, twisting her wings, as the goblin king looses interest and starts walking away.

 

_no, Roland, don’t say it, no_

 

there is something like teeth gnawing on her greaves. She should probably scream, but everything feels so numb

 

_this is it, this is it_

 

“SHE IS A PRINCESS!”

 

_oh you good-for-nothing cheating moron_

 

Everything stops.

 

Her feet touch the ground and she can feel eyes on her.  She explicitly keeps her own shut.

 

A talon slips over the stripe under her chin, letting the helm fall off her head. The same talon, attached to a finger attached to a hand lifts her chin up, and she squirms.

Two blue eyes stare at her, studying carefully, judging her, like a prize or a trophy, as he looms over her.

 

Her fingers curled into a fist.

 

“A _Princess_ ,” he actually seems amused. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

 

Marianne does how she was taught, because, well, she _is_ a princess. Her lips draw into a thin line, eyebrows arching up so high over hooded eyes her face hurts, and with a single slap he swats his hand away.

 

“How _dare you_ touch me,” it’s a hiss, and her mentors would have be crying tears of joy if they saw her right now. “You back-scaled. Slimy. Cockroach.”

 

The goblin king actually draws a breath, as she tries, with a lot of difficulties due to their unbearable height difference, to stare him down. It’s a battle of wills that she is not sure she can win, but what other option she has. But so far the luck doesn’t favor her, as the man growls at her, their faces suddenly all too close.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

_Oh well._

 

“Excuse this,” she replies, and decks him across the face.

 

This is where things don’t go according to her spontaneous plan: her sword is not there, but she finds that out a moment too late, because the Bog King turns back to her and he is _roaring_ , his staff swinging, as a bunch of goblins press her down to the ground with their weight-

 

_Third time’s the charm_

 

“She is a Crown Princess!” her ex just lets it all out. “She is worth more that anyone else in the whole kingdom!”

 

_Just kill me. Don’t let him bargain._

 

The staff slams into the ground before her.

 

A deep quiet laugh makes her raise her head.

 

The King laughs, it’s soft and happy, and when he looks down at her, all she can see is this dreadful sinister _glee_.

 

“Cleaver one, aren’t cha?” His hand goes over his eyes, as he shakes his head. “And to think you almost _fooled_ me.”

 

Her body is pulled back up, claws pulling away.

 

“But you are a trump card, princess,” he passes his staff from one hand to the other, pacing slightly.

 

Marianne tries to keep her appearances, but her knees start to buckle. All this back and forth is taking the last of her. Her back is aflame, and she bites her cheek to keep herself from crying.

 

And then the damn Goblin King grabs her hand.

 

For a moment she can’t breath. She stares at him, and his slowly slipping smile, and within her the world explodes, and something stirs in her gut, something long forgotten, or what she never had before but knows too well, awakening an ancient beast

 

it clutches her insides, but she looks at the man before her and knows that the terror slithering its way into in his eyes is the same demon in disguise

 

_it’s an old wife’s tale_ , her mind coos, _of a hunger devouring you, of magic able to create new life, of eyes meeting eyes_

“Damn you,” she mumbles, legs giving in, mind going blank, her whole body – limp wings, heavy limbs – falling forward into darkness and - somebody’s strong coarse wiry arms.


	2. All things Unrequired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marianne is ruthless, but she forgets that sometimes bad things happen to rude people.  
> Also, there is a question of traditions, the image of mothers and an issue of respect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Story is M-rated for a reason, and here you have it.
> 
> Did I say that this is going to be a fun story? Haha. I lied.  
> [This message is brought to you by all the Big O's everywhere, and also Hysterical Literature.]
> 
> It's been so long since I had a chance to do some mythos, so this brings joy to my poor little heart.  
> Also, Griselda.

Marianne wakes up in what is clearly a cell. It’s not the fairy kind, with stone and leaves.

She is lying on a giant red mushroom and staring at the rickety makeshift bars made of sticks, with a tall gloomy figure of the Bog King standing behind them against the wall, _watching her._ His eyes pierce the semi-darkness between them with their eerie, unexpected ungobliness.

 

_her fingers clutch the bars anything to get a hold anything not to fall when he growls into her ear_

 

Her stomach twists in a sudden urge to be sick.

 

He pushes off the wall and steps forward, arms crossed over his chest, his weapon strangely missing.

 

“What… did you do to me?”

 

His voice is very soft, on the verge of gentle, with a undertone of _concern_ , but it commands, and wills upon her. Marianne tries to stand up, assert herself, but any movement of her back makes her hiss and groan.

 

Her captor seems shaken, his armor twitching slightly at every single sound she produces.

 

“You tore a ligament,” he says, low as a whisper. “Mother patched you up the best she could. You won’t be able to fly for a while.”

 

_It’s not broken, it just has to heal, it was looked at_

 

She grabs at her chest. The cuirass is gone; in fact all of her armor is gone. Her chest is wrapped in what looks like spider-silk cloth, just very shabby, bandages doing something even more complicated on her back, going around her wings to fix them in a stationary state.  Her pants are still there, and her boots, but from waist up, there are bandages.

 

 _Just_ bandages.

 

Marianne curls, trying to cover herself the best she can. She wraps her arms, hands cupping the flat-bandaged surface where her breasts are ought to be, face going red.

 

Behind the bars, the King _churps_ , probably thinking she is in pain – she is, and moving makes it worse – but every time his hand lands on the bars, he pulls it away like it’s burning.

 

_talons ripping through cloth tearing thread scratching skin squeezing fondling her back arching_

 

“Thank you,” she tries to be polite - they did treat her after all. “Still I prefer not to be naked.”

 

“Can be arranged,” he replies, looking away from her, like the concept of her being naked was some sort of a novelty, like on some level he _respects_ her. This is a moment’s weakness, and when he looks back, his eyes are cold and hard and fixed intently on hers. “Now let me repeat: what did you do to me?”

 

_the feeling of his hand in hers, warm and dry, grip tightening, suddenly longing and wanting and taking what was given, and her fingers spreading to give_

 

“Nothing.” She is trying to get used to this, hot flashes running through her body, and she is glad that this is a cell, and the bars look sturdy enough to hold him back.

 

“LIES,” his roar echoes through the place, as he slams his fist against the wall. “You poisoned me!” He paces a bit back and forth, his wings swinging at sharp turns. His walk is funny, like he is some sort of a giant bird. Giant distressed bird. “I don’t know how, but your effort is wasted. I will not succumb to your pretty fairy tricks.”

 

_he called you pretty, he finds you attractive_

 

“Tricks? What are you…”

 

_he is a goblin, Marianne, who doesn’t know the old wife’s tales_

 

He stops, jaw set into a determined hard line. “If you think that I will touch you with even a finger-

 

This indignant attitude is starting to really piss her off.

 

_he is a man, Marianne,_

_he is just another man_

 

“ _But you want to, don't you?_ ” It’s almost like he is a bloody victim here. (" _But to be fair, you left me at the altar, Marianne._ ") “And even more so.”

 

She crawls off the damn mushroom with what elegance is left in her, and staggers to the bars.

 

“You want to break this cell and slam me against the wall.”

 

_how dare you blame this on me_

 

“You want to tear off my clothes and do with me as you please.”

 

“Shut up.” His confused grey face turns _pink_.

 

_that’s the color of your shame, is it_

 

“Wanna know why?” This is going a bit too far, but truth to be told, she doesn’t give a damn, she is on a roll, and is actually _scaring_ him, the monstrous goblin king, and it feels _good_ , so she presses herself against the sticks, back arching – _damnitdamnit_ – as she reaches to touch one of his defensively raised hands.

 

“Cause eyes met eyes, and I, Princess Marianne of the Fairy Kingdom, have recognized you as my own, as you have-“

 

“-chosen you,” he states.

 

He eyes their touching hands – fingers intertwining, curling around each other – and her probably suffering expression, and by the way his jaw drops Marianne figures that he _finally_ got into his head that she has nothing to do with This (well, she has _everything_ to do with this, but not in the way that incriminates her).

 

“That doesn’t really work grammatically, but you get the gist,” she jests, because…

 

she finds it amusing? She finds him amusing? Something about the horror of this situation (her, hurt, behind bars, him, a goblin, _their recognition_ ) is amusing.

 

(she chooses to disregard the complete mess of emotions that fill her – she can discern boiling anger, gut-wrenching terror _teeth on her arms teeth on her legs_ , and the psychotic ecstasy of _mymatemymate_ that makes her knees tremble, and the pain, _of course_ , but everything else is a blur)

 

_hands gently squeezing her neck, caressing down her chest, and breasts, and stomach, rubbing her hips, spreading her legs_

 

He backs away from her _fast_ , her skin tingling from the sudden lack of contact. His eyes jump all over the room, but keep stopping on her, as if expecting something, anything.

 

This is better, she smirks, it’s better for him to be frightened, to be weak before her. Doesn’t make her want to

 

_he is your Mate, you are hurting your Mate, show compassion_

 

Marianne slides down on the ground. It’s cold, hard and welcoming. She feels tired. The glance she throws his way confirms her worst fears.

 

Her heart stops for a moment: his lips move in one long monotonous quietest _nonono_ , and his wings twitch, and his fingers press together painfully.

 

His neck is long and unbearably thin.

 

_damn it_

 

“If it helps, I hate this is as much as you do.”

 

He makes a tactical escape, door slamming behind him. After a moment, something slams against it from the other side.

 

Marianne chuckles, and it’s not a laugh but it still hurts.

 

She closes her eyes and hums something that reminds her of her mother’s soft hands combing through her hair back when the dandelions were tall enough to reach the sun, and if you behaved, if you were a good girl, your father would let you sit on his throne, and maybe even wear his crown.

 

 

Time passes. Could be minutes, could be hours.

 

Marianne has no idea since the room has no windows, only the damn mushroom and the cold floor, which she lies on, hoping for something, maybe a cold, to quietly kill her.

 

Does a marvel for her back though.

 

Sometimes she hears movement behind the door. It’s usually scratching, or shuffling, an occasional quiet conversation. They don’t last long, just a few indiscernible phrases thrown back and forth, followed by prolonged empty silence.

 

Marianne doesn’t sleep. She has to stay cautious, has to stay on guard. She tells herself that she scared him away, but doesn’t mean he won’t come back.

 

_he won’t come back, oh spirits, he won’t come back, what have I done_

 

So she sings. She tries to remember every single song her Nana taught her – they were all about fairy knights and fairy ladies doing fairy court things, like dancing in the moonlight, or dancing around the fire, or frolicking about among the flowers (which is, if she thinks about it now, not about frolicking at all) – all the things that nobody ever did, or maybe they did, but back in the days when her Nana was her age, before the war.

 

In the time when recognition was the way the Fairy King chose his wife.

 

(But Nana died a long time ago, and Grandpa died even earlier, so it doesn’t matter now.

It’s not supposed to matter.)

 

When she doesn’t sing, she keeps looking around without changing her vertical position.

 

Goblin architecture, she makes a note, is different. There is a lot of wood. She is pretty sure, that she is, in fact, inside of something, like a tree, or a stump, and the room is actually _carved out_ , and not just that, there is craftsmanship in it, there is some resemblance of style, there was somebody, who spend time to smoothen the walls, and to make the whole system of the bars, that are supposed to rise (if she didn’t feel like her back was killing her, she would have already tried to lift it up), somebody who passionately dedicated himself to this room.

 

It is… unsettling.

 

When she runs out of songs about spiraling each other _wings fluttering, limbs wrapping around each other knocking against everything in their way_ – think of Nana, poor old Nana rolling in her lavender grave because your Mate is a bloody goblin! – she starts to sing the heroic ones, about kings going to war against something, snakes with actual names, birds with actual names, goblins and their King (just King, no name), and a few about mythical humans, but those do not exist.

 

_neither did Recognition_

 

Time passes.

 

The door opens when Marianne is on a verse about a young fay prince – her great-great-great uncle, probably – stealing something from somebody, and a goblin walks in. It’s short and grey-ish, and has orange hair fixed in old-mop kind of hairstyle.

 

“As much as I love pretty singling, you are trouble, girl.” It says in a voice like cracking old leaves or a frog song in the swamplands, waddling towards her, one hand carrying a bowl of berries, another holding rolls of spider silk linen. ”But do sing some more.”

 

Marianne tries to get up, as the creature slams the bars up in a casual no-nonsense gesture and plops down by her side.

 

“Need to redo these,” it says and rips something and the whole binding bandage-things starts to come undone.

 

“Wait, WAIT,” Marianne knows her hands are flailing, but she tries to keep herself decent.

 

The creature raises a judging eyebrow at her, hands pulling on bits she tries to keep as close to her body as possible. What’s worse, then trusted a bowl, Marianne grabs it, forgetting that her arms where occupied.

 

“Eat, you’ll need it,” says the creature and starts rebinding her, _expertly_ , completely disregarding both Marianne’s burning face, a bowl in her hand, or the wincing, when the bandage goes around Marianne’s wing. “You ask me, you need it already, skinny bug that you are. Sorry bout the clothes, my son turned into a bubbling mess trying to explain what size you are.”

 

_Her son._

 

“You are the King’s… mother?”

 

“Griselda, pleasure to meet.” That explains a few things, like the _woman’s_ ability to take care of the bandages, and simultaneously shove food in Marianne’s mouth. “Don’t know what you did, but he’s been sitting by that door for the past three hour looking like somebody kicked him, can’t even explain what’s wrong.”

 

Marianne looks at the door. The door stays closed, but she smiles anyway.

 

Griselda pauses what she is doing and leans to look her in the eye.

 

“That was a hint. I need to know what you did to my son.”

 

The woman is short and stout, but there was something about the way she smiles, wide and teethy, that makes her fairy skin crawl. It’s slow-boiling, and stormy, and burns with a power of thousand suns.

 

(Mom used to look like that at boys who made fun of Marianne, because she was clumsy and kept falling down.)

 

“Nothing,” she says over a handful of berries she shoves in her mouth. After a minute that she wins herself, Marianne adds: “Do goblins have a thing, where two goblins meet, and they just know that they were brought together by Spirits?”

 

Griselda stops her scrutiny in favor of the remaining bandaging. “I think it’s called love, sweetheart.”

 

“It’s not love, it more like-“ _legs wrapping around a thin waist, hands scratching against plating, mouth biting into hers hungrily_ “-like an urgent _need_ to do things to another person.” What did he call it? “A… Choosing?”

 

“Oh, you mean the Choice. Yeah, we have that.” Fingers lovingly finish up the wrapping. “But you have to know,” the woman grins, “those are some _very specific_ things you are implying.”

 

_oh I do_

 

Marianne thinks. Her next words are a well-crafted masterwork of intelligent design, and maybe just a bit of a gamble.

 

“It’s a pity, really,” she says, her fingers red and sticky with berry juice. “Bet he wasn’t expecting his Choice to be a flipping fairy, did he?”

 

The king’s mother walks around her, all thin lips and little button eyes, and a look of a woman who doesn’t like to be lied to.

 

Marianne fights the pain and shrugs, sucking on her fingertips.

 

Next comes a scream that only a mother who knows that their child messed up could make.

 

It rolls over the walls and the ceiling, and the surprisingly good acoustics of the place, while Griselda marches to the door and slams it open.

 

“You Chose a Girl and HAVEN’T TOLD ME?”

 

She grabs something from behind the door, and pulls the Bog King into the room by the ear.

 

_(“But Mom, I don’t want to! Why do I have to learn the stupid dances?” “So that one day you can dance with the one you love.”)_

 

“Mother, NO.” The king manages to get himself free, unfurling into a proper standing position.

 

“Don’t _Mother_ me! You _chose_ her!”

 

“I didn’t _want_ to!”

 

“Well, tough luck, IT’S A GIFT.” Griselda nudges him. It’s less of a nudge and more violent push into Marianne’s general direction. “You don’t know how much easier our lives would have been if your father and I would have chosen each other.”

 

He almost stumbles over her, still sitting on the floor.

 

“And if you don’t care for what I say, it’s still a tradition, and the Dark Forest _respects_ its traditions.” She picks up the ripped up pieces from the floor, and rolls them in tight ball, threads sticking to the sides. “And you are doing to respect them as well, starting with _your_ _Mate_.”

 

Griselda walks back to the door, still open ajar with a bunch of goblins now pilling up in the opening. She shoos they away, and they part before her.

 

“I’m going to get her room ready.”

 

“She is staying in the dungeon!”

 

“Like hell she is!” Says the royal mother, slamming the door shut behind her.

 

One moment Marianne stares at the King’s thin, yet _lean with muscle_ calves, - the next his face is inches away from hers, and he growls.

 

The Bog King, she figures, has problems with personal space (when it’s not his).

 

“I don’t know what you are trying to achieve with this, but-“

 

Marianne licks her stained fingers. His eyes flicker to her mouth.

 

“Stop it.”

 

“This?” she sucks on her thumb and bats her eyelashes at him.

 

He _cracks his neck_. Marianne’s loins actually do a summersault at the sound.

 

“That,” he strains between his tightly shut teeth. His nostrils flare.

 

_push him down straddle his hips_

 

“Or what?”

 

He stays silent for a moment, lips curled. And then he _smiles_ , tiny wrinkles forming in the corners of his eyes, tinier dimples on his cheeks.

 

He leans forward, and Marianne freezes, blood running cold.

 

_don’t kiss me please don’t kiss me_

 

He doesn’t. His head bows to the side the last moment, hot breath trailing by her cheek to her ear, to linger there in a low and husky and heavy with rolling _ars_ whisper:

 

“ **Or I’m going to rip ya pretty little wings off, Princess**.”

 

Marianne slams a hand over her mouth, but it’s a bit too late, because a sound she tries to shove back into her mouth is out and it rings about the castle in all its vulgar insatiable need.

 

_you sick disgusting woman_

 

“Don’t look at me,” she wheezes, not that she has to, he is not looking at her, he is not touching her, he just sits, crouched, by her side, still as stone, as a shudder runs through her bones, and his breath tickles the edge of her ear and

 

_dear spiRIIITS_

 

it crushes upon her, she swallows, and lets her gut clench, releasing it, and if she could move her wings, they’d flutter like crazy, but it’s even better like this, with them bound and restricted

 

her hand falls on the floor and she brushes her fingers against his.

 

“I… I- Ah, I-“ Bog stands up, turns around and walks out of the room.

 

Marianne catches her breath. Her chest hurts. Her face burns, eyes going dry, vision blurring from guilt and shame and sudden emptiness and this stupid goblin cell

 

_why, why me_

 

She pulls her knees to her chest and cries.


	3. All things unaccounted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marianne offsets her own mental breakdown, we are introduced to Game of Thrones, Fairy Edition, and there are A LOT of conflicted feelings all around. Except for Griselda. That woman knows her stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was a flipping challenge. But sometimes you just have to throw things against the wall and see it they stick.

_King Edron the Kind, the son of Bres the Seer and Brigit the Gentle, married Nemain, the daughter of House Telan of the Great Fairy Houses, in the third summer of the Age of Sunflower. It is said, that he recognized her at the Spring ball, that her hair was red like fire and her eyes were the color of the haze hanging about the far-off branches of the Dark Forest the days before its leaves would start to spread, greyish green, with specs of brown. Her wings were like a sky before a big storm, and when she spread them, their tips would fray and create wind of their own. Nemain rarely smiled, but when she did, it was either for her King, or their children, and yet, they say, she shined like a great beacon, like a gemstone amidst the dirt._

But that, Marianne remembers, is not what she is known for.

_King Edron the Kind was assassinated by the traitors of the Great Fairy House Sulis mid-way through the Age of Sunflower, leaving Nemain to be a Queen Regent for her son, prince Neit. This caused the uproar among the Great Fairy Houses, since the law of Equal Rule would be passed only during the reign of her grandson, Etlan, to let his only heir, Princess Caer, take over the throne in the Age of Bellflower._

_The Great Houses demanded for Nemain to marry. The suitors of the noble houses flooded the castle. They came bearing gifts and promises and threats and she looked upon them, over her children’s laughing faces and the glimmer of gold and metal, and saw nothing but blood._

_They say she organized a feast. They say she burned them all to the ground. They write of her mirth, as the House Sulis was no more. (This was only the beginning, they write, in words too harsh, the language of scholarly men and their own justice, which doesn’t know loss and heart break, and sometimes, even_ facts _, for that matter.)_

_They call her Nemain the Proud, for there was no one who held her head higher._

 

 

 

The tears leave lines of coal and berry juice on her cheeks, and dry, slowly.

 

Marianne sits on the ground of her cell - it’s hers and no one else’s now, she made her place here – and cooks up a storm within herself. She tells herself she is a daughter of the sky and the sky is vast and endless and changing, as it is also unforgiving. The voices of the feelings inside her head,

 

_how dares he I am not_ weak

 

so demanding and commanding and urging before, dim down, overpowered by the burning rage and the weight of finality

 

_this is what I am what I am now_

 

that turn her bones to stone and pull her to the ground, but it’s the solemn conviction that keeps her collected, that lets her stay in one piece and makes her alert of the emptiness around her and conscious of the decisions she is about to make, the ramifications of said decisions and the worlds she is about to change – all great concepts, it not a bit jumbled, she would need to think things through, when the hurricane within her slows down a bit, but not right now.

 

Right now, the tremor calls her to action.

 

Marianne stands up. It comes with difficulty; her legs are still weak, the ghostly memory of a shiver running down her limbs at his voice resonating in her spine lingers at the back of her head, but she is a future Queen, and a fairy one at that, and he will see, he will _see_ what it’s like to _cross a fairy_.

 

She shuffles to the door, trying to keep her back straight, thanking the Spirits for their good will and the numbness that surrounds her broken wing. (She considers, for a moment, a salve, the faint wet and slippery touch fleetingly coming to memory amidst shame and confusion of her rebinding, but dismisses it – why would they, why would she, why would _he_? – No mercy, she repeats, no mercy.)

 

The handle gives, and she is… surprised. Marianne knows that he slammed the door shut as he rushed out, and she haven’t heard any sounds of tempering, but still, it’s _open_. She could walk out of here, out of this cell, right this moment, and possibly get as far as the castle gate, if she is lucky enough. But that is not what she wants.

 

Marianne opens the door nevertheless.

 

The glimpse of the world behind finally forms a picture, and she is in the dungeon alright, somber shadows and dark corners of the tall carved wooden walls, a path, open, lit up, to the spiral of a staircase, rising to the ceiling and beyond. Large cages swing with a drift over her head, empty. The bared holes in the floor that she steps around are also vacant. Not a guard in her way.

 

The whole dungeon is a giant hall of mute unfulfilled expectations. At this point she finds that it looks more like a decoration to a summer play than something that is used, times of war or not. But that’s the least of her worries now, as she walks the hall and her footsteps bounce of the chains and the ceiling, falling into a march-like beat for her assault on the stairs that seem to go on forever.

 

Halfway up her legs tell her they _do_ go on forever, and that she has to sit down and catch her breath. Her determination does not waver. It just takes a break for a moment.

 

(in that moment she is _Marianne_ , a fairy who cannot fly and who has to walk up the stairs and she haven’t walked this much since her wings weren’t strong enough to carry her weight, and that was so long ago, her mother’s hands in hers as they rose above the sea of green they called their home, and her mother’s voice pulled her forward, _that’s it, Marianne, that’s it, my sweet, fly to me_ )

 

She swallows away the knot in her throat, gets up and walks again, and her fingers trace the warmth of the carved wood, face turned up to the light that calls to her at the very top. She is the child of the sky and she is going to reach it.

 

By the time the stairs end, her anger simmers into a slow boil. It’s not enough to set a castle on fire, but certainly enough to make some _big_ changes.

 

There are two voices; a high pitched one, female, like nails against glass, and _his_

 

_she’ll know it amongst the hundred others in a crowded room, even if miles were between them, it’s the voice that tears her mind asunder_

 

and the mumbled conversation they are having, his screaming to her mocking, and then there is a third one, his mother’s, which is just irking altogether, until a roar stops her eavesdropping in her tracks.

 

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN “YOU DON’T”?!”

 

“You don’t,” says the woman again. “You can’t fix what’s not broken. You would know if you ever tried to _fix things_.”

 

“That _fairy_ CANNOT be my Choice,” he retorts, mad, but all she can hear is scorn.

 

That fairy. That fairy has a name.

 

“It’s **Marianne**.”

 

She steps around the corner and tries to keep her breath paced. The King stares daggers at her, very disconcerted daggers of “don’t come close to me”.

 

The space Marianne intrudes into is a throne room, familiar to her from when she was planted face down on the floor  - much simpler times, she was a prisoner of her own naiveté, hoping to get a drop on something she knew little about. She still knows next to nothing, but so does he, oblivious of her and the generations of fairy queens before her.

 

“ _Princess_ Marianne. Care to learn it.”

 

There are a couple of goblins there, and the King’s mother, and Marianne certainly wants to say something else, but the ball of light and spider thread in the King’s hand vibrates in azure and excitement. It surges, and almost mesmerized, Marianne steps closer, the shimmering light calling to her like a flame.

 

The blue orb is the source of the female voice, she realizes, as it screeches, paradoxically remaining melodic. “NO. No, do _not_ tell me…”

 

The King grinds his teeth. He holds the orb on a stick between them, like if could safe him. Save _him_ from _her_. She’ll deal with this latter, right now the voice rings in her mind, a distant memory, and in a single second of unhindered enlightenment, Marianne understands what the orb represents – _old magic, lost magic, forgotten_.

 

“Is this is the _Sugar Plum Fairy_?” she says, honest surprise taking over everything else, cogs turning, _how did he, who weaved this_ , “You _captured_ the _Sugar Plum Fairy_.”

 

But from within the cocoon, the woman - or from what Marianne heard, an immortal magical being of great power – is laughing so hard she is hiccupping and failing to breathe, fanning herself with her translucent thin-wristed hand.

 

“Someone please _help_ , this is too _good_. I’m immortal and _I’m dying_. Oh Spirits, this is a karmic disaster if I ever saw one. _Truly beautiful_.”

 

The King’s face, a contorted mask of disgust, slips for a blink of an eye – but she catches it, the quiet pain of unknown origin ripping through him, and it’s enough for the voices in her head, all of them, hers, his, to wake up screaming _embrace welcome wash away the sorrow_

 

_his Mate is a_ fairy

 

But the Bog King twitches, low dangerous growling coming out of his throat, and his once again hard sight is set upon her, barred teeth and chitin shoulders crackling, menacing, intimidating, wretched and utterly… amusing.

 

“Plum-“

 

He is torn between her, and Plum, and the rest of the world, but all three of them seem to drive him out of his mind. Makes her forget she came to crash and burn this party.

 

“So what is it,” Marianne’s voice slithers like a wild serpent, and she can’t bite it away, the perverse delight of seeing him flare his nostrils at her. “That the Mighty Bog King doesn’t do?”

 

The ancient magician radiates joy. “I suppose you are aware that you are the King’s Choice, yes, Princess?”

 

“I was told.”

 

The heat comes back, but now it’s dark and maroon, and when it twists in her gut, Marianne puts her hand over its resting place beneath her navel, _shh be still be quiet not now_. The King never leaves her sight, their personal spaces intersecting and mingling, his features so much clearer now, in this soft glow, than in the gloom of a dungeon. In it, his eyes shine, the holes into the deepest of falls, perhaps the only thing about him she enjoys, except for his voice, that cracks, bruising her chest as it does.

 

“She is not my Mate,” he says, but now it’s nothing more than a plea - not to her, or to Plum.

 

_goblins do believe in Spirits, but are their Spirits cruel_

 

She can almost see other words on the tip of his dark tongue, these ones for _her_ , and she wants to pull at them, make syllables fall out, when Sugar Plum interrupts him.

 

“You can say whatever you want. Once admitted, the Choice – or, in your case, Recognition, Princess – is yours to live with. Can’t contest it. Can’t break it. Can’t fix what’s not broken.”

 

The beast turns again.

 

_not broken, this is not broken, this is right, he is right, he is yours_

 

And she almost believes, this treacherous heretical thought, as generations of women in her family shake their heads in shame at her, and her weak, trusting heart that never learns, and bleeds for men who hold her prisoner of their desires.

 

_but it’s different he is different he is your mate and that is-_

 

“I wonder,” the prophet, tormenting, grows wistful, before it stabs her in the gut with a flirty curved dagger of another revelation, “what your children would look like.”

 

_I_ will _mother his children_

 

Something breaks, and her demons rise, red sky, wild winds. Nemain’s wrath.

 

Marianne pulls away from him violently, and so does he, and Plum remains standing between them and their newly-found distance, her stick stuck in the floor, as she laughs at them. “Forgot about that part, didn’t ya?”

 

The thing inside her grows claws and tears, and she pushes it back, terrified at its non-existent certainty, a hand over her navel.

 

_his children I will bear_

 

_and they will be the heirs to our thrones_

 

The sound escaping her wants to be a laugh, but comes as a harking noise of a wetland’s crow.

 

_what a joke_

 

“Grandkids can wait.”

 

Judging by the look in the King’s eyes, as he turns on his heels, that’s the first time he hears _that_ particular piece of advice from his mother, but it takes her opening her mouth again for exasperation to surface. “Have to figure out what to do with you two first.”

 

The _Spirit_ – and Marianne is relatively sure that’s what she truly is – spins around in her prison, fingers drawing shapes around her. “You let it take its due course, of course, minding cultural traditions.”

 

The conversation shifts as the King physically pulls himself out of it. He runs, and Marianne is not surprised at all.

 

“He is a-“ Monster. Beast. Predator. Murderer. Coward. “A goblin.” And no, she isn’t spiteful.

 

“So what? He chose you, you recognized him – this isn’t love, it only works if your bits can fit together, and judging by the reality of right here and right now, They Can.” A crude explanation and it works – it doesn’t lie to them about fate and stars, it doesn’t promise salvation, like the old wife’s tales she used to believe but pretended she didn’t. This is not a promised land. “You _did_ recognize him, right?”

 

The King’s wings twitch. His back is turned to her, a tight carapace of scales with four narrow glimmering blades, ripped and punctured and battered, that tremble to his heartbeat, his spine, such a crooked hunched line before, but now, straight as a sting, and his hands, large taloned things, clenching and unclenching with emotions she is only beginning to fathom

 

_anger fear anxiety guilt why guilt yes_ guilt

 

“Yes,” it’s a whisper, a confident whisper, but still, and his shoulders bristle. Marianne wants to press her hand against the junctions of his wings, feel his joints under her fingers. She doesn’t care. This is not pity. It’s curiosity. “I did.”

 

“Then I suggest you get on with the program, unless you feel like you would like to experience the less than pleasant part of it. Saw a couple once, who decided to take their time. It wasn’t pretty. And that was a _fairy_ couple.”

 

Bile rises up her throat but she swallows it back down. If she could, she would have chosen anything else but this, she would have chosen _Roland_ , the cheating scum, but a fairy one – at least he doesn’t have claws and fangs, at least he would know what Recognition meant:

 

A partner. A friend. The one to put your trust into…

 

Fine, not Roland. Roland doesn’t deserve trust, or to be called any of those things.

 

“She is not my Mate,” growl her actual one, and his wings buzz, such an irritating sound.

 

“ **Would you cut it out already?** ” Marianne’s hands cross over her chest, and fleetingly, she figures that she doesn’t care, not anymore, about her current lack of appropriate clothing. All she can think about is how angry this man makes her. “Or are you so stuck in your stubborn conviction that-“

 

It takes him about one and half steps to reach her, eyes blazing with dark blue and teeth bared, his hand wrapping around her wrist, painfully, bitterly, and pulling at her, stumbling and all.

 

“You are not my Mate,” he repeats again. “Because you are not capable of being one, Princess.”

 

He advances, while she retreats, and within his posture she recognizes the man she saw when she got here. A ruler, dark and menacing, and oh so ruthless. Why was she amused before, she doesn’t know.

 

But is she scared? Not really.

 

Something presses against her back. Magic tingles against her bandages - Plum’s prison.

 

Bog King towers, voice low and rumbling.

 

“The Mate welcomes. The Mate lifts your sorrows.” The tip of his talon slips under her chin, smallest of pressures against her neck. “The Mate cares. And loves. The Mate is Home. The Mate,” his claw falls down and stabs, gently, _why so gently_ , against her sternum, where the upper edge of her binding frays slightly, and a corner of his grizzly mouth curls with dry _mirth_. “Is a Heart. Can _you_ be somebody’s Heart, _Princess_?”

 

Marianne swallows.

 

Can she?

 

A strange feeling, like her chest is about to open asunder, rushes through her vein. It’s the way he phrased it – _to be somebody’s heart_ – that can’t leave her. She thinks she knows what that means, the dull throbbing sound in her ears growing louder until it’s all she can hear, not the voices, inside her head and beyond it, such a bloody relief, and she wants to know, eagerly, where it’s coming from, heat radiating towards her. Her hand rises on her own, guided towards the V-shaped cavern of his chest, until her fingers press into it, brittle edges throbbing against her fingers

 

_his Heart_

 

She can’t tear her eyes away.

 

_Spirits what is she doing_

 

His claw is now a finger, now two, now three, and they touch her skin, sliding to her clavicles because his hands are just so _big_ in comparison to her everything-

 

“Well, serves right the two of you.”

 

Marianne jolts forward, Plum’s voice shooting through her like a strike of lightning, and the backside of the King’s hand scratches against her cheek, when he jumps away.

 

Plum doesn’t seem to mind them at all. “I told you, your father, and _your_ father as well, that this war lasted for too long, but who ever listens to me!”

 

Marianne lets the words run through her, once, twice, until some sense tickles into them. She bows her head, the sting of her cheek a soft distraction, a small constant among her buzzing thoughts. Makes her remember why she came up here in the first place.

 

She glances at the king. He hasn’t moved, a broken angled form, palm pressing tentatively to the place where her hand was, lost in thought.

 

“What does she mean?”

 

He doesn’t answer, but his eyes dart at her and away, to his mother, who is surprisingly silent through their little dance, studying them grimly with hands on her hips.

 

Plum answers for them.

 

“What do you think? Everything has a reason, child.”

 

_everything has a reason_

 

“What does this have to do with the war?”

 

“Let me out and I’ll tell you.”

 

“NO,” the King’s voice is full of righteous indignation, but Marianne raises her hand his way without looking. She is not talking to him right now.

 

But she repeats, “No,” and Plum, who twirls excitedly at the prospect on her release, stops mid-turn. “First _you_ tell me, and then we’ll see.”

 

The fairy measures her up, the glow of her upturned body pulsating with power, lips pursed in seemingly innocent contemplation.

 

“Look at you, embracing your ancestry,” but she smiles, and shrugs, narrow shoulders rising. “Fine. Be it your way. Had to know a woman-monarch had to come by for this silliness to end.”

 

“I not a –“

 

“But you will be, so maybe you should start accepting it now, like you are already. Since you had a Recognition and all.”

 

There is a commotion behind her back, and she guesses by the sound of scratching plates, it’s the King. She doesn’t pay him any mind, even with his people growing restless. They are his subjects, so he can deal with them on his own.

 

“Tell me about what you meant.”

 

“You seem like a smart young lady. Do you know the last time someone was recognized in the Fairy Kingdom?”

 

“Yes, of course. It was my grandfather-“

 

“Ahh,” the fairy sighed, fixing the circlet resting on her forehead. “What a time it was. The Fields bloomed, calm and prosperous, filled with life and the sound of flapping fairy wings could be heard all over the place. So many colors, so many voices, fairy, elf, and such. One could say that the Kingdom was at its peak.”

 

It was. Marianne remembers her grandmother’s stories, of bustling halls, and balls so glorious in their magnitude one could barely find a place to walk, forget about dancing.

 

“It’s certainly not the case now.”

 

“Now why would you think that?”

 

Because this war has gone on for too long. They are not suffering, but from time to time, when she flew over the far-off corners of the land, she could see empty houses, whole villages abandoned, gardens forgotten and unattended, because there was no one to simply look after them. They just lost too many people, too many to fill the empty holes. That’s what happens when men go to war and-

 

Plum, with her hands folded over her chest, winks at her.

 

“I see figured it out.”

 

“Are you telling me that-”

 

“I don’t need to tell you a thing, because you already understand. The Recognition – and the Choice – were given by Spirits as the way to better us as people, to hone our talents.” She smirks. “But I don’t need to tell you that there is, indeed, such a thing as too much of a good thing, do I?”

 

Her throat goes dry. She doesn’t understand how this never occurred to her. It’s so obvious, now that she thinks of it, eyes trailing along the walls of a foreign castle, reaching all the way to the open sky, now in hues of pink and orange as the sunset approaches, her first sunset away from home. It’s the emptiness that earlier confused her, the vastness of this room, where footsteps are echoed, and voices become rustling. This place is a home half-full.

 

She never though about it this way, she could never say that their people were stagnating.

 

It was easier than this.

 

They were simply dying out.

 

“Bog King,” she calls, facing the monarch who pauses his hushed arguing with his mother to turn his head, giving her a cautious raised eyebrow.

 

“What.”

 

Her shoulders pull back, neck long and straight, and she finally says them, the words dancing at the back of her head ever since she pushed herself off the ground.

 

“This war has to end.”

 

The howl rises, so loud it rocks the floor under her feet, dust falling on her head.

 

The Goblin straightens, incredulous, contemplating, hand waving for his subjects to calm down. He leans against his staff, and suddenly starts laughing, the hearty sound initially taking her by surprise, but she fights it.

 

“ _Hilarious_.” He breathes, toothy, sardonic. “And how are planning to do that?”

 

Really, how?

 

She studies his features and thinks back to the dungeon. How his cheeks filled with the color of primroses when she touched his hands.

 

“ _We_ will figure it out.”

 

Marianne takes a step towards, the light bouncing off the walls touching her face. There is no malice in her, she discovers, no anger, no nothing, but a single idea that she can use this, she can work this in her favor, and it’s empowering, more than any praise.

 

For the first time, she feels like a Queen.

 

The Bog King – _Bog, her Mate_ – grows silent, humor leaving him. He stumbles to her – because his mother keeps nudging him, strange woman giving her some sort of a knowing glance – but remains his distance and a sour grimace of skepticism.

 

“ _Aspiring_ ,” his answer is less then enthusiastic. “But there is no “ _we_ ”.”

 

_her hand on his chest, a faint beating escaping the cracks_

_his claws ticking the skin under her clavicles_

_warmth, hesitant, frightened, small critter, inside her_

 

She nods. “We’ll work on that too. Let’s start with me getting a shirt.”

 

Bog opens his mouth, closes it, words caught on his uneven teeth. He is perplexed, it’s clear as day, and… understandable.

 

For the first time, she does not feel estranged.

 

“Better sooner than later.”

 

“Now _look_ ,” he finally spits out, just to be interrupted by a patter of feet from the depth of the hall, _the entrance_ , Marianne supposes, as two creatures rush in, catching their breath.

 

“Sire,” the smaller looking one, fishlike, squeaks. “Fairy Army. At the border.”

 

“I guess this is to be expected,” he waves the staff at the small crowd pulling into the hall. “Prepare the mounts. They must not advance beyond the primrose belt.”

 

Marianne places her hand on it and feels the casting cool, slick and strangely organic. “I’m coming with you. And I prefer for my subject not to see me half naked.”

 

He groans, _whatever_ , obviously more occupied with his people scattering about. She leaves him be, looking about the place, when a pile of cloth, coarse, no better than burlap sack is trusted into her hands.

 

“Here,” grins the royal mother, while Marianne unfolds it, trying to figure out, where the front could be, or if it even has a front, but nodding, graciously. It’s better than nothing, a thing similar to what the queen herself is wearing.

 

“Do you know where I can find my sword?” she asks.

 

Griselda, still strangely amused, waves to a small creature with a beak that runs pass her.

 

“You better not get my son killed.”

 

The clothing feel rough against her skin as Marianne pulls it over her head.

 

“Why would I?” She gives one last glace to the spider web prison. “That would be just counter-productive.”

 

Griselda doesn’t say a word. She just passes her the scabbard, and walks off, taping on her son’s leg as she goes. They are so very different, it’s astounding,

 

The King approaches, once again hunched, hard jawline conveying his disapproval of this turn of even, but there is a difference she can’t discern just yet.

 

“Now that you succumbed my mother to your madness,” his eyes pause on a scratch on her cheek and he winces. “I hope you have a plan. And it better be good.”

 

And then in one swift move he lifts her like she is nothing, arms cradling her to his chest, a witty comeback flashing in her mind and melting away, as takes off, flying through the hole in the ceiling and towards the setting sun.


End file.
